One Category to NEVER EVER Downsize

You might be thinking that you know what I am going to be writing about here. You think that this is going to be about one of life’s intangible essentials . . . one of those warm and fuzzy entities such as love, compassion, gratitude, learning, dreams . . . the much-needed attributes and emotions that we as humans cannot do without.

But, no. I am going to share with you the one tangible “category” to NEVER downsize. And although there may be significant overlap (think: Venn diagram) with this category and some of the many sweet intangibles in life such as empathy, sharing, caring, happiness, or forgiveness, this particular tangible does take up space on a wall or a shelf.

And I do guarantee you will feel abject regret if you get rid of anything from this category: musical instruments.

Trill the Silver Clarinet

Every single instrument that I have downsized, minimized, or decluttered from my life has led to feelings of sadness, remorse, or regret. Sometimes all three combined. I once sold a silver clarinet named Trill because I needed to make rent. I look back and I wonder What was I thinking?? Trill was a unique and beautiful instrument, and I am guessing that I could have sold something else I owned instead for the $25 that Trill netted.

This Sale of Regret aligns with James Baldwin’s words on poverty: “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.” If you’ve been in my position, you know exactly what this means and how it feels. The selling price of my clarinet will never out measure what I ended up paying out in regret. She’s gone now, but I still wince remembering the buyer saying that he planned on making Trill into a really cool lamp. A lamp.

Ouch. Yes, it still hurts. Not a lot of music can be made while standing up straight with an electric cord running through your wind passage. Sometimes I have to conjure images of Benny Goodman merrily wailing away on his favorite clarinet to help me re-center. There is still music left in the world. Amen.

It helps to know that Trill has been played and loved. She has traveled and has stories to tell. Maybe she likes being a source of illumination. Truth, she was in sore need of being repadded, and I had no way of knowing when I would be able to afford her maintenance. If I still my mind just so, I can feel the light photons emitting measures of “The Clarinet Polka” toward my ears. I believe that light molecules are capable of this. At least I want to believe.

It, the 12-String Guitar

This instrument has a simple open-and-shut case attached to its sale. I have managed to remove a lot of the emotion involved with the sale, as I am able to project a happy ending for It.

I play mandolin, fiddle, and mountain dulcimer; I am not a guitarist. I have tried to play 6-string guitar, but the average neck on a guitar is just that tiny bit too wide. My collapsing pinky doesn’t respond to the strings in the same way on a guitar that it will on a narrower-necked instrument like my mandolin or fiddle.

I bought the 12-string as a package-deal item when I went to buy my Dobro mandolin from an elderly gentleman who was quite the musician. He and his wife were selling their entire collection of instruments. It was all quite sad. Their aging hands could no longer master the fingerboard and having the instruments around to remind them of this was just too much for them. Hence, they were selling every one of their beloved instruments.

I read their ad in a local newspaper. I think that this is the only reason that I managed to be the first one to call and get directions to their home to buy the Dobro. I am one of those odd people who still gets a physical paper-and-ink local paper delivered each morning and who reads the classifieds from beginning to end. Upon reading the ad, I called immediately and told Irv that I would buy his Dobro mando sight unseen. I just needed their address.

I didn’t care if the neck was bowed or if the tuning pegs needed to be replaced. I had been wanting to make the acquaintance of such a mandolin for quite some time and was so excited to finally meet her.

Irv met me at the door and introduced me to his music partner and spouse, Helen. Helen couldn’t meet my eyes when I shook her hand, and I suddenly felt like a huge creep buying any instrument from Irv and Helen. By the way she avoided looking at me, I could guess that she was the mandolinist of the family and that Irv was the guitarist.

Irv brought me to a back bedroom down the hall and there on the bed, laid out like bodies on the quilted bedspread, were two mandolins and three guitars. I told Irv that I really appreciated him allowing me to look at his instruments. I played a few riffs on the Dobro, and it was love at first sight. I set it aside and picked up another mandolin. I loved its sound and set it aside as well.

I don’t know if you have ever heard of the disorder with the acronym SAS but I have it: Stringed-Acquisition Syndrome. If you could see my house, you would find instruments, both strings and woodwinds, in every room of the house. I even have an ancient potato bug mando in my bathroom. (It’s okay, for all of you musicians. It doesn’t mind the moisture as it is no longer playable.) I hadn’t planned on buying two mandos that day but, like puppies in a litter, I knew that the two would be happier if they stayed together.

As Irv was opening up their respective cases to lay them to rest before traveling home with me, I asked him about the 12-string. Irv told me that he had bought it on a trip they had taken through California, back when they were able to drive. He said that its tone was sweet and that I wouldn’t be sorry if I took it home with me. I took his advice and decided to buy it, so we put it in its case as well.

As I left, I paused and turned around to thank them both again. I promised them that their instruments would be loved and played. That they would be maintained, and that I would never leave them in a vehicle that was either too hot or too cold to leave a pet in. Helen looked at me then and nodded. She didn’t smile, but I sensed that she understood that I understood the enormity of the moment.

I kept my word with the two mandolins. They are loved and played. The Dobro has made two trips to the luthier, and I think that this last go-round did the trick. The neck has been completely replaced, and I pray that the wood will behave and not relax into an unplayable bow.

But . . . the 12-string? I felt guilty the entire time I had It. I had promised Irv and Helen that It would be loved and played. It stood there, on its stand, watching me. I swear there were a few times one of its strings would ping at me when I was leaving the room. I never even named It, such was my neglect. In honor of Irv and Helen, I had to let It go.

I decided to post the ad the same way that Irv had: the old-school way in the newspaper. It took about four days, but I got the call. A couple that traveled locally and played coffeehouse folk were interested. I drove over to their house, and Ben fell in love with it the second he touched it. As he tuned it, I knew that I wasn’t going to be bringing it back home with me.

When it came to the price, they hesitated. They asked if I would consider some kind of payment plan. If they could pay me half now and half later. That they were good for it. They wouldn’t let me down.

I knew what I had to do. I told Ben that he could have it, for free, as long as he promised to play it and not leave it on a stand or hanging on a wall. I wish I could have taken a picture of him as he looked at me and then back to the 12-string. It was like he had won the $12 million lottery and was holding the magic ticket and still couldn’t believe his good fortune. I thought, I’m pretty good at this match making stuff.

I told him that he could have the case, the capo, the tuner, the works. I wished them both well on their next mini-tour around the region. I never looked back when I was driving down the street toward home. I felt a pang of loss, but then I could feel Irv and Helen’s hands on each of my shoulders: Well done. Well done. I guess that there are some instruments that are meant to keep traveling.

Larry the Accordion

Whew. Just writing about passing along that beautiful 12-string exhausts me a bit. On to when I sold my full-size Lawrence Welk accordion (dubbed Larry). This time not for money but as a rescue mission. The transaction ended up feeling like a scene from some bizarre sitcom or from a drug deal gone right. I don’t know. I couldn’t figure out the buyers’ deal-i-o at all.

I already had Hank, a smaller model accordion, and it just didn’t seem right to have two accordions, especially when Larry was simply languishing, stifled and underplayed, in his case. I decided to keep Hank, the smaller, less imposing model, as Hank is so much easier to maneuver, and decided to list Larry on Facebook’s Marketplace.

Do you know how long it takes to sell a full-size accordion? I’ll tell you: a long time. After all, compare the number of guitarists or pianists you know with the number of accordionists you know. I know. The list is going to look lopsided. And unless you live in the land of Perpetual Oktoberfest, it is going to take some serious time and effort to get it rehomed.

I reckoned back to when I bought Larry and cursed my ready spontaneity when it comes to buying an instrument – any instrument. The reason I bought it is that my music partner knew a guy who knew a guy. It was the sort of situation when someone was trying to rehome their adult kid’s instrument that was up in the attic and they thought it might bring them some cash. Later, I seriously doubt that their adult child even knew that they had wholesaled Larry off for some quick cash. A little cold and harsh, I am thinking. I doubt that Larry had been consulted.

I bought Larry after taking one look at him. His pearly buttons, sky blue body, and pristine bellows had me at first wheeze. I could barely lift the thing into the back of my truck and wondered how the hell I was going to even apply it to my body, let alone play it.

When I got Larry home, it felt more like I had just adopted a new dog. What to do with him? Where to put him? In which room? I couldn’t mount Larry to the wall, as his corpulent body would have ripped the wall anchors right out of the sheetrock.

In essence, I realized that I had bought myself a prehistoric squeeze box that had no intention to repay my kindness for rescuing it from its attic prison with anything but spits, puffs, gasps, and whistles. I can laugh about it now, but I am still wondering how I thought I would ever be able to make beautiful music with Larry.

Not that I expected any gratitude. Still, Larry’s presence didn’t quite jive with the rest of the instrument family. There was a sullenness to him, likely due to being stuck in a case up in the attic for so many years. Larry sat in a corner of my music room for several years before it just seemed cruel to see him suffocating in his case any longer. I mean, the instrument has bellows that require air, and Larry wasn’t doing any breathing in my possession. He wasn’t even on life support.

I posted Larry online and listed a price of $75. I wanted Larry to feel like he was worth more than “make me an offer” or me adding an “OBO” to the $75 price tag. We all know that OBO simply means I’m fishing right now, trying to figure out how much someone is willing to spend. Larry’s value was significant, just not to someone like me who couldn’t lift him off the bed to attach the straps to my shoulders.

Hang in there, Larry. Help is on the way.

The couple who bought Larry surprised me. And intrigued me. And eventually simply annoyed me. It was an older couple who was interested in buying Larry for their grandson. I wanted to ask if their grandson had given them their blessing for the accordion hunt, if he was a fan of Lawrence Welk, or if he had had a hankering to learn accordion since he was a wee lad. I didn’t ask. When I considered any further inquiry as to why, I could feel Larry’s glare to hush my mouth, so I zipped it.

The couple kept asking me if Larry could play. I can’t remember how many times they asked me this.

“Damn right, Larry can play,” was what I wanted to tell them, but my response instead was, “I have no idea.”

Then they asked where they could take the instrument to get it checked out before they bought it.

My response, “I have no idea.”

Their next question: “How old is it?”

You know my response by this time.

They said that they had to go home and think about it.

My response: “Please, let me know ASAP as I have been getting other calls.”

Larry winked at me and whispered a squawk from his bellows. I laughed out loud at his cheekiness, and the couple grew suspicious again. God, I hoped that I hadn’t just blown the deal, for Larry’s sake.

I coughed, disguising my laugh, and told them to let me know by tomorrow. That I would hold on to Larry until I heard from them.

The next day I got the call. Yes, they were interested. Would I kindly leave the accordion at the bottom of the driveway, as they didn’t want to have to haul it all the way from the house to the car. (I told you that Larry was a fatty.)

They said that they’d leave the money in an envelope. Did I have a lawn ornament or a plant pot that I could leave by the accordion so that their cash didn’t blow away? They didn’t want me to think that they had absconded with Larry without leaving the money. Like I was going to call 9-1-1 and file a complaint.

I dragged my stone gargoyle down to the foot of the driveway and left Larry beside it, wondering if one of them would have the strength to tip it for the money drop. I patted Larry’s case and assured him that all was going to be well. That he was going to get the opportunity to wheeze and breeze and bull$h!t with the best of the accordion aficionados. I had come to find out during our final transaction call that morning that their grandson was quite the accordionist – that he had attended and won no less than two competitions at statewide Oktoberfests.

All I could think was, Yay for you, Larry. We got you out of the attic and onto the stage into the hands of a winner. I felt like a co-conspirator that had succeeded in moving a captive from point A to point B. A happy ending for Larry.

Hmmmm . . . I think that I am going to have to reassess my “One Category to Never Downsize” thinking. Maybe it’s not so bad to move things along, even when it kind of hurts. I have bought instruments as a result of someone else downsizing, and I have passed the favor on to others when I, myself, have downsized. There is a come-round-right feeling to it. There is joy in the shifting of musical molecules, if I play it right.